August 2020 MVP: Katherine Rudge

When Katherine Rudge began training her puppy Jazz in 2014, it became a bonding experience and a learning experience for both of them. One that has led to both of them volunteering for the Winnipeg Humane Society.

Before COVID-19 put most things on hold, Katherine and Jazz, a Lab-German Shorthair Pointer mix, made weekly visits to Riverwood Square, a seniors facility offering both assisted living and supportive housing.

“We work mostly on the Memory Care side with people with Alzheimer’s,” Katherine explained. “Before COVID-19, we’d go once a week and just visit with people for a couple of hours. The people there love it. People on the Memory Care unit, they may not have a lot of memory left, but we’ll visit and they will start talk about the dogs they had as a child. It’s really nice to see them light up and interact with Jazz. It’s awesome!”

Taking that puppy course was important for both of them. “I’d never trained a dog as an adult,” Katherine said. “Growing up, my dad was the dog person, so Jazz is the first dog that I’ve trained. I was not sure about what I was doing so we went to puppy class and she learned the basics. Then I realized that I needed to be trained as well. We just kept going to classes and had a bonding experience over that.”

Since then Katherine and Jazz have taken several classes. “We’ll take a different class every now and then, just to polish up on things we’ve learned,” Katherine pointed out. “As we got going through the different classes I realized we could do some cool stuff together.” Jazz has done several obedience classes and has her Canine Good Neighbour Certificate from the Canadian Kennel Club.

And Jazz enjoys Tricks classes – she has two titles for Tricks. She’s done, among others, Rally-Obedience, Agility and Nose Work, which is similar to some of the training ‘sniffer dogs’ at border crossings get. But instead of sniffing out drugs or explosives, these dogs sniff out wintergreen oil.

“Jazz is a very sweet dog and she likes the praise of people,” Katherine said. “Doing these classes, she gets to interact with the instructors and we get some feedback and praise and then we practice during the week. We definitely have bonded over it. It’s a great pastime and an opportunity to connect.”

Katherine started volunteering at the WHS is the spring of 2018 as a cat condo assistant. “I was looking for a volunteer position and it came up on the radar that the WHS was looking for people, she said. “I met with Johanne and it started from there. When they found out I had a dog that was well-trained, Jazz did her assessment test for being an ambassador and we started doing some schools for the Pet Empathy program. It snowballed from there – we did day camps, coming in once a week and showing tricks for the day camps, filled in on the See Spot Read program when needed and then we started at Riverwood Square.”

Katherine also volunteers with one of the photography teams, taking pictures of the animals up for adoption to go up on the website. “I’m the cat handler,” she giggled. “Sometimes it can be interesting to convince cats that they need their picture taken. They have their own minds.”

And in whatever spare time Katherine has, she enjoys working in her small art studio, creating mixed media art or working with yarn, fabric or wall hangings.

Katherine has no other pets currently, but that certainly wasn’t the case when she was younger. “I grew up with every kind of pet on the planet,” she pointed out. “There wasn’t a pet we didn’t have at one time or another. I grew up on a farm and it became known in the community that my mom had a soft spot for pets. If somebody didn’t want their pet anymore, they ended up at our house. We had gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, fish, hedgehogs, you name it. We ended up being a refuge. It was like Mom’s own little rescue.”

Katherine is appreciated by the Education department. “Katherine spends her time at Riverwood Square each week facilitating Pet Therapy sessions with her dog Jazz for the residents,” said Assistant Manager Danisha Jarrett. ” We appreciate and thank you for all your hard work and dedication Katherine – we would not be able to do it without you!”

Written by: Brian Kozak, Volunteer